Counting down the Milwaukee Bucks' most valuable assets - Forgetting Kendall Marshall

We're counting down the Milwaukee Bucks' most valuable assets one by one to get a clear picture of how Bucks fans view the current roster.

Predictably, the roster we had gone through all this trouble to rank went and changed on us in the middle of the process. Gone are Carlos Delfino and Miroslav Raduljica, our second and fourth-lowest ranked assets, respectively, and in their place is a player and a future first-round pick.

This exercise is going to drag on long enough even without adding more posts to fill in the blanks, so instead I did my best to gauge the reactions of Bucks fans in our comments and on Twitter. As it turns out, both Jared Dudley and the Clippers' 2017 first-rounder fell right around the current position in our rankings, so I've adjusted our results accordingly.

As for the next asset voted off, that honor goes to Kendall Marshall. Marshall was claimed off waivers from the Los Angeles Lakers in a largely no-risk move to bolster the guard rotation (which was almost simultaneously bolstered by the free-agent signing of Jerryd Bayless). There's no denying how much Marshall has "disappointed" since being drafted 13th overall by the Phoenix Suns in 2012: it takes a special brand of awful for a lottery pick to be waived before even reaching his first option season. But with career averages of 5.6 points per game and sub-40% shooting, Marshall certainly hasn't impressed.

Well, that's not entirely true. Marshall did raise plenty of eyebrows as a featured player for the Lakers last season (which is, in itself, sort of incredible), when he averaged 8.8 assists per game and ranked 10th in the league in total assists for the season despite playing in only 54 games. That singular factor made him a fantasy waiver-wire gem and a somewhat coveted asset for the Lakers (that had a lot to do with his being cheap), who were reportedly interested in re-signing him had he cleared waivers.

Instead the Bucks snapped him up and now employ an interesting player to experiment with this season. Marshall has clear playmaking talent as a lead guard, and he also kept defenses semi-honest by hitting 40% from behind the arc last season. Those two ingredients make any young player worth keeping around, but Marshall has his own set of problems. He turns the ball over a lot and struggles to create his own shot, which can bog down any offense he's trying to run.

Some have speculated that Milwaukee snagged Marshall as an investment in their young big men, John Henson and Larry Sanders. While Brandon Knight showed plenty of promise last season, he's not a great pick-and-roll play-maker and doesn't necessarily excel at setting up his bigs for easy shots. If Marshall can coax improved play out of Henson and Sanders, he'll be well worth his minimum salary. Still, a player whose value is primarily wrapped up in boosting his teammates isn't automatically a critical piece, and unless Marshall makes another jump this season, he's probably not a fixture in the Bucks' long-term plans.

Milwaukee Bucks Roster Asset Rankings

18. O.J. Mayo
17. Chris Wright
16. Zaza Pachulia
15. Jerryd Bayless
14. Johnny O'Bryant III
13. Ersan Ilyasova
12. Nate Wolters
11. Jared Dudley
10. Clippers' 2015 first-round pick
9. Kendall Marshall